Gone with the Wind – December 23-26

It’s been a while since I updated, said Mr. Obvious. That’s because it’s been a while since I went anywhere. I figure that this blog is about my traveling, so the only time I’m really going to have anything to say is when I’m someplace other than Dallas or just after I get back from there.

Christmas time has come and gone again. I must say that it affected me much less than usual this year. I only recall one day where I actually went to the malls or toy stores for shopping, and then all I did was head straight to the check-out line to purchase gift cards. I find them to be the easiest and most convenient method of gift-giving. Other than that one day, Christmas really didn’t intrude very much. Oh, Barnes & Noble seemed to have something going on every week that would cause a crowd to be there, and driving near the malls could be a challenge, but other than that… nada. It was all nice and peaceful, just the way I like it.

Lisa and I went to Georgia for Christmas. I like going there, whether it’s for Christmas or Labor Day or just a random visit. It’s generally the most relaxing vacation. I get to tuck myself away in a corner on a nice soft leather chair and bury myself in a book. I get up every once in a while to check email, although I did that much less this time than I normally do. Then there’s the food. There is always some sort of snacky type food lying around. It’s sort of like going to an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet and bed & breakfast. Very nice.

There were several very nice talking points about our trip. First of all was the flight. I burned 60K AAdvantage miles for two first-class tickets to Birmingham, AL. Lisa’s parents live roughly halfway between Atlanta and Birmingham, so either way we were going to have to do a bit of driving to get there. We got to DFW airport the requisite 1 hour before flight time and proceeded to get some dinner and make snarky comments about the other people waiting for their various flights. We changed gates twice, which was good for a little exercise. We went from one side of the terminal to the other. While we were sitting there, I looked up from my book for a moment just in time to spot a B- or maybe C-, list celebrity slouch into the gate to wait for the flight. Now, unless you’re a fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, you’re probably not going to know who Nicholas Brendan is, but I am and I do. He was also on the very short-lived Kitchen Confidential as a pastry chef, but fewer people know that show than BtVS. Then after we boarded he ended up sitting across the aisle from me. He had his headphones on pretty much the entire time jamming to something. I wouldn’t have minded seeing what he was listening to. Hmmm, is this a mark of celebrity status or flight attendant inattention? I noticed that he was even listening to his iPod both before they said it was ok to use electronic devices and after they asked us to turn them off. Shame on him. I respected his obvious wish for privacy and didn’t hassle him, although I doubt he would have been very upset by a little interruption. He seemed like a fairly nice guy. Definitely talked like Xander. I have been advised by multiple people that Nicholas Brendan has a twin, and this could be him. I’m going to stick to my guns that it was the actor and not the actor’s brother.

Where the Streets Have No Name – October 19-25

What to say? I’m now in Dublin, hence the U2 reference for all who got it. I didn’t. I had to look it up, FYI. I’m not a big U2 fan. The cabbie on the way from the airport to the hotel actually pointed out the neighborhood they got their start at on the way over. Nice of him. I think he fancied himself a tour guide. But I’m getting far afield.

Last weekend in London was nice. Lisa came to visit me, which was a real help. Being away from home for three weeks at a time is tough and having a piece of home come see me made it much easier on me. I don’t think it made things easier on her, in fact I’m sure it didn’t. She tends to worry about what’s going on at home a little more than I do. We should invest in an internet camera thing so we can see the house while we’re away. I wonder how much that would cost. We should also invest in kitty-cams. We’ll get the boys some collars and attach cameras to them. Chances are they’re always fighting or looking at each other anyway, so we’ll know they’re ok. Anyway, since the team I was with last week finished up their testing early and went home on Thursday, I was told to work from the hotel on Thursday and Friday. So while I worked on Friday, Lisa took a bus tour around London, and she loved it. She got to go through St. Paul’s Cathedral, which I missed the last time I was in London. And she went through the Tower of London. I don’t think she was as fascinated with it as I was, but I can understand why. I think
I’m a bit more into that kind of place than she is.

We did the Haunted London Walk that night. Tours like that are generally nice as long as there are only about 10 people, but that’s never what happens on these things. There were 25-30 people I think, and it’s really annoying to try jockeying for position in a crowd like that. The guide seemed very knowledgeable, but the scare factor just wasn’t there. It’s convenient that the ghosts are never there when you’re on the tour. Although, now that I think about it, how interested am I really to meet up with a ghost?

Most of Saturday was spent travelling. No, I didn’t get to go to Stonehenge. We decided to skip it since most people are apparently disappointed with it and you can’t get up close to it anymore. It would be interesting to see I think, but I didn’t really feel like going out of my way to see it. Instead we decided to start off with lunch at Harrod’s. This serves a threefold purpose: 1. She got to see Harrod’s. 2. She got to see the memorial to Dodi and Diana downstairs. 3. We got to eat. One kinda/sorta problem with that though was that the Picadilly line was shut down from Hyde Park to Knightsbridge. Hyde Park is only one stop toward Harrod’s from where we were going to get on that line. Knightsbridge is where you get off to go there. So we walked it. The walk there was easy. No problems at all. We got to see some art for sale by streetside artists, and Lisa fell in love with this set of paintings. They were very simple yet very good. I have to admit that I like them a lot too. Then we walked through a fairly nice neighborhood. She tells me that that would be the most likely place to run into Gwyneth. No star sightings though. I never get to see famous people when I’m traveling. Then we walked through some of the shopping around Harrod’s. It was a very nice looking neighborhood with some very nice looking stores. All in all not a bad walk.

We did have lunch at Harrod’s "famous" deli. I think it should be famous for its high prices, but I’m on a per diem, so does it really matter? Most of that will be taken care of by the company. Then we walked around and she did some souvenir shopping. After that it was time to walk back to the station. The walk back was brutal. Not only did it feel much longer, but it was like everyone wanted to walk back at the same time, and they all wanted to walk much slower than we did. It’s just as annoying, if not more, being stuck behind a slow walker as it is being stuck behind a slow driver. When we got back by the artists Lisa decided we had to have some of the pictures she liked. I don’t remember putting up much of a fight about it. I really like them too and I knew it would make her happy.

We decided that we were going to go to the hotel to drop off our assorted purchases and then we’d run down to Leicester Square to see if we could get some discount theatre tickets for that night. No go sadly. I like theatre, and there were a couple of shows that we both decided we’d like to see, but they all cost 50 pounds or more. That’s about $89 at the current exchange rate, and I wouldn’t pay that much for the best seats in the States. I think she was a little disappointed, but I think she also eventually came around to my way of thinking. We ended up going to the Tate Modern art museum. We took a side trip along the way to walk down the Thames Walk nearby and actually ended up going to the London Dungeons. That was definitely over-priced. I prefer my trips through that sort of thing to be sort of free flowing. I don’t want to be herded into giant groups, and that’s exactly what this was. Oh, and I really like to have air circulating. It makes it so much easier to breathe. If you go, don’t bother with the London Dungeons. Sorry, LD, it just wasn’t that great.

After the London Dungeons we went to the Tate Modern for dinner in the café upstairs and to see a little art. We both had fish and chips, which came as a bit of a surprise for Lisa since I’m not normally a fish-eater. It was pretty good, but I wouldn’t say the gourmet fish and chips was any better than what I’ve had at pubs in the UK. Dessert was good, but it’s hard to mess up dessert. All you have to do is add more sugar and it automatically gets better. Next we tore through the museum. We’re pretty quick when it comes to looking at art. I think we’re fortunate that we both look at it the same way. If one of us felt like analyzing each and every piece, the other would get seriously annoyed. That’s not us. We walk around and take a quick look at stuff. If something calls to one of us, we look. If it doesn’t, we move on. There was some really good stuff though. Lots of Picasso and Dali. I don’t know that I got Dali’s Lobster Phone piece, but it was still interesting and good to see.

I spent Saturday in the airport. Lisa’s flight left at 2:45 and mine left at 4:45. Hers was international and mine was considered domestic. So we got there at 12:00 so that we could get checked in and get through security. I left her at her gate at 2:30 when she started boarding and went to hang out in the British Airways Lounge. It was nice, but I’ve been there before.

So, now I’m in Dublin, and I wasn’t here two hours before I had my first adventure. I managed to find a cash machine and the taxi stand and told the driver to take me to the Hilton Dublin. I was a little skeptical because I was sure my reservations were at the Conrad Dublin, but that’s what my itinerary said. So I asked him to drive me by the Conrad on the way there so that I could see where it was. Lucky for me it was close. I tried to check in at the Hilton and they’d never heard of me. They called the Conrad and it turned out that I should have been there. Unfortunately, my driver had already moved on to his next job. Fortunately, it was only a five-minute walk to get to the Conrad. Of course, that’s not the whole adventure. I still had all of my luggage with me: a large suitcase, my computer bag, and a carry-on suitcase with an extra change of clothes. And just to make it more interesting, it was raining. A five-minute walk in the rain while lugging all of my baggage. Sounds fun doesn’t it.

The hotel is nice. This must be a five-star hotel. There’s a soft robe and slippers laid out for me every night, a beautiful king-sized bed with nice fluffy feather pillows, decent television, and a phone in every room. There’s even a phone in the bathroom, which I am militantly opposed to. There are some places that I should not be reachable, and the bathroom is at the top of the list. The offices that we’re working at are nice, but unfinished looking. They tell me they’ve been here for two or three years, but they’ve still got unpacked boxes everywhere and not a whole lot of art hanging on the wall. It looks like a bachelor lives here. I finished up my part of the program very quick. It helps that they’d eliminated half of my testing, but that would still have only another day. The most touring I’ve done is going to dinner. The Chinese place we went on Monday was ok, although they spice their chicken for sweet and sour chicken weird. It’s almost like they were spicing it to have some gravy on the side. Dinner on Tuesday, however, was amazing. I had this incredible roast loin of venison with asparagus and potatoes. I’ve decided that if there’s a vegetable I like it’s asparagus. Weird huh? I think I might also like artichoke too, but I’ve never had one of those that wasn’t mixed in with a whole bunch of other stuff so it’s unclear.

London on my mind – October 8-18

I know you’ve missed me. You can admit it. There’s nothing to be ashamed about.
The truth is I haven’t really had anything to write about on this trip. Oh, I had a nice weekend, and I got out and did things, but the trip as a whole hasn’t been all that exciting. It doesn’t help that I don’t really want to be on this trip in the first place.

The plane ride over was ok. In some ways it was more exciting than the first time, but in other ways less. I had to take a connecting flight out of New York, and our plane just barely made it in time for me to get over to my flight to London. I made it. My luggage didn’t. It’s a good thing I brought a carry on with a full change of clothes. I walked through first class on my way to business class, and that was an eye opener. First class looks NICE!!! I have a hard time even describing it. I think the seats actually unfold so that the passengers are laying down rather than just having a nice recline. I’d love to take a trip that way. I finally saw Fantastic 4 on the way over. It was an adequate movie, but nothing special. Certainly not as good as Spiderman and actually not as good as Hulk either. Then I watched the tail end of Batman Begins. The food was nothing special, but I think that’s just the way airline food is. I guess they really can’t have a full-sized, made-to-order kitchen on a plane. It just wouldn’t be cost effective.

I’m staying in the same hotel I spent the weekend in when I was in the UK in August. It’s not the worst hotel I’ve stayed in. It’s better than the one in York, although the York is a Marriott 5-star while I think this one is 4-star. Something like that. The best one over here so far was the one in Leeds, but I’m a little far out to be staying in Leeds this time. Breakfast at the hotel is a little better. They have ommelettes and frittatas, which taste pretty good. They also have that nasty English sausage though. I’ve decided to steer clear of any place that serves "traditional english food." It’s just not worth it.

Speaking of food, I’ve had some hit and miss luck. I’ve been to some places that served some very bland food. I went to a steak chain on Leicester Square that was just about the most boring steak I’ve ever tasted. On the other hand, I’ve been to a couple of French places that were amazingly good. There’s a much better selection in London than there was in York.

Now, on to actual work. The office out here is far, far away from the city. It takes us an hour to get here in the morning and an hour to get back. We don’t leave until 6:00 anyway, so a big chunk of time is eaten away by travel. Top that off with the slow service at restaurants and most of the evening is time I’ll never get back before I can do anything interesting. That being said, the office is pretty nice. They tell me that this place used to be a nut house, and it’s definitely got that feel to it in some places. It’s a bit of a maze too. What’s really weird is that it’s set in a residential neighborhood. Nut-house-turned-office-building in the suburbs mixing with the soccer (football) moms and playgrounds. We see a whole bunch of kids in uniform walking to school each morning, and they all seem to be coming out of this neighborhood. The work is fine. It’s nothing I haven’t done before, and therefore nothing special really. I’m just trying to get through it without getting too bored with it. I’m failing, by the way. I think by time I get toward the end of something I just get bored with it. I’ve noticed it in other aspects of my life. If I’m playing a video game, I may have spent hours and hours trying to finish, but when it gets to the end I just lose interest. Sad really.

The weekend was nice. I don’t even remember what I did Friday, but that’s not because I was too drunk to remember. I must have taken the tube to Picadilly Circus, but I just don’t really remember doing it. It doesn’t matter anyway because Saturday was the real day. I went down to Leicester Square that morning and bought myself tickets to see Les Miserables and the Producers. I’ve wanted to see Les Mis for 10 years. It never comes to Dallas. I’ve only been to New York once, and I don’t even know if it was playing there. Where else can I go to see it? It was amazing, and it completely lived up to my expectations. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself somewhere it’s playing. The Producers was also very good. Very funny in some places. I did have this very faint hope that Mel Brooks and Matthew Broderick would decide to sneak in for one night only and play the leads, but that was just wishful thinking. The leads were still very good, although I think the accountant one had a somewhat weak voice. I swear there was a song where the notes were just out of his range, so he was a little on the flat side. Still, they were up there doing their thing, so who am I to complain.

Extended Edition – September 23 – 30

The weekend drama started early for me. Just as I was getting ready to get out of here and on my way back home, American Airlines called to tell me that due to problems with the plane my flight was canceled. Luckily for me they had space available on the next flight out, although it left two hours later, and they booked me right on it. It was a full load, so I wonder if they had to put some people from my flight on stand-by. Doesn’t matter. All I really care about was me being on the flight. Call me self-centered.

I did get stuck in the middle seat of a three-person row. I should learn to look at the seat before I walk away from the ticket counter. I could have easily had that corrected to a decent seat. Again, luck was with me; neither of my seat-mates was the stereotypical 300 pounder. Oh, well. I’m willing to suffer some discomfort in order to spend a couple of nights in my own bed.

Went to a friend’s wedding this weekend. It was nice, which was nothing less than I expected of her. Very short ceremony, which is always good for weddings. There was a nice spread upstairs at the reception. I got to see a couple of close friends that I don’t often get to see, and I saw another couple that I like to see every once in a while but wouldn’t be able to survive on a regular basis. I’m not meaning to be mean or anything like that, but the female half of the pair is one that I find best in small doses.

Sunday morning I found myself at the airport again. I think the people at the ticket counter are starting to recognize me. It’s now week 3 and I should be wrapping everything up, and I will be as long as the client cooperates.

The week, fortunately, progressed as planned. The client got everything they needed to get me, although most of it was at the last minute. We were able to wrap things up pretty quickly. I still have one more test that I need to perform, but it’s one that I can do from the home office rather than from Toronto. It’s good to be done though. Toronto is a very nice city, and it’s got a lot more night life than Dallas, but it’s time to spend more than a day at home. I get one week to live it up before I’m back on the road. Hopefully the next trip will be the last for at least the balance of the year.

One good thing that came out of the week is that we got to go home a little early. We finished everything up and scheduled a flight out for Thursday afternoon rather than Friday. I would have gladly stayed at work for 12 hours to get everything finished in order to make that flight, but we didn’t need to do that. Airport security seemed tighter than usual to me at Pearson Airport. Not only did my checked-in luggage get searched but so did my computer and me! I didn’t get thrown up against the wall and frisked. They just wove the wand over me to see what made the metal detector go off. I think it was my belt, and I think they’d dialed up the sensitivity on those machines because my belt hasn’t set off a metal detector in a long time. As far as my check-in bag was concerned… They’re kind of suspicious of power adapters. I carry three or four along with me when I travel. Every time I’ve had my bag searched it was because of them. Well, I also had my carry-on bag searched because of my international socket adapters once.

The other good thing that came out of my trip is Icewine. If you’re a fan of sweet, dessert wines, then you need to check this stuff out. I had a glass on Wednesday night for the first time and it was absolutely AMAZING. There’s virtually no wine taste to it, although the bottles I bought are 11.5% alcohol. I had a white, and it was light and sweet. If you have a chance to try some, I highly recommend it. I bought two bottles for myself at home. Highly unusual, that.

O Canada… - September 18 – September 23

There hasn’t been much to report about this week. It’s been pretty tame except for the seeming lack of any progress on the work. It’s going to take me the full three weeks to do my part of the program. If everything we asked for initially had been ready for us then it would have only taken a week and a half at most. Oh well. That’s just the way things go.

I’ve seen a little bit more of downtown Toronto this week. It’s actually a pretty cool city. We went down to Yonge Street for dinner a couple of times. The first time was to go to the Toronto Hard Rock Café, which is apparently the first HRC in North America. It was ok, but if you’ve been to one HRC you’ve been to them all. And since I’m not a gigantic music fan a lot of the memorabilia was lost on me, not that I went around the joint looking for it. Another night we found a giant mall in the middle of downtown. I thought it was just an office building, or at best a stand alone Sears, but it turned out to be a full-fledged mall on the inside and it wasn’t a small one. I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to explore it a little more thoroughly. I may not do a lot of shopping, but I do like to explore these monuments to capitalism, except at Christmas.
There’s a store here called HMV. I guess the only thing I could compare it to would be like a Virgin store. It’s huge, and there are two of them within like three blocks of each other in downtown Toronto. Those are just the ones I’ve been to. It’s the Starbucks of music stores. The guy I’m with buys a lot of CDs, so we stop at just about every music store we come across. Lucky for me they also sell DVDs. I only bought Superman. Well, Superman and two CDs, but they had a great sale going on.

The highlight of my week was my trip to see the Maple Leafs play a pre-season game against the Canadiens. The CFO of our Canada division heard that I was interested in going and just gave me his tickets. Thanks, Ian. I had a hell of a time finding someone to go with me though. My boss was going to come, but he decided at the last minute that he didn’t really want to go. He said it was because he had a lot of work to do, but I think he may have just wanted some alone time or that he really wasn’t interested in hockey. I know he doesn’t follow the Stars. But, really, how can you go to Canada and not go see at least one hockey game? The people here are nuts for it, which made my difficulty finding someone to go rather strange. All the accounting people were dealing with month-end close. I asked all of them and they all said they couldn’t go. I ended up going with this guy in Operations, and he pretty well summed up what I thought would be the general sentiment regarding free Leafs tickets. He said that he would miss out on five hours sleep or come in early the next day or just come back to the office after, but there was no way he’d turn down free tickets to the Leafs. Needless to say, the Canadians in our accounting department up here are the worst Canadians ever. I mean, I thought they ate, drank, and breathed Maple Leafs hockey. Guess I was wrong.

So the game was great. I think the new rules they’ve instituted have really opened the game up a bit. We saw seven goals scored (that’s a lot for you non-hockey people), and that’s not even counting the shoot-out they did at the end. That was some cool stuff.

We had a debate this week about whether to go home for the weekend. Well, it wasn’t really a debate. I was going home. If the company is willing to pay for me to return home on the weekends, then I’m taking advantage of it. The travel people told the boss that if he went home for the weekend then it’s possible that he wouldn’t be able to return on time Sunday thanks to Hurricane Rita. I’ve seen enough newscasts to be fairly sure that all the hurricane hitting D/FW was over-hyped. So the fear that I might not be able to get back by Monday is, I think, completely unfounded. I think he really just doesn’t like the idea of only getting to spend one day at home. Me, I think that being able to spend even one day at home is worth it. That’s just me.

Back in the Saddle Again – September 11 – 16

I’ve decided that I’m only going to make one blog entry for this week and probably only one per week for this trip. To tell you the truth, so far Toronto just isn’t that exciting. We’re not in a great area of town. That’s not to say that we’re in a bad area; it certainly doesn’t appear to be. We’re just in a boring area. There’s not really a whole lot to do around our hotel.

Speaking of the hotel, it’s very nice and very crowded. There’s been this travel agent convention or something like that going on there, so there have been lots of hotel people. We had dinner with a guy from Hilton the other night. I saw a woman with a Holiday Inn nametag walking around. They’re all staying at the Airport Marriott. Kind of funny.

We went to downtown Toronto for dinner the other night. Got stuck in traffic a bit, but nothing too bad. I think I saw a drug deal go down, and it was right out in the street. There was this homeless looking guy on the median. He wasn’t very old, probably somewhere in his late teens or early twenties with ratty looking clothes (what do you expect? He’s homeless.) and dirty blonde hair. Anyway, this well dressed guy maybe a few years older stopped on the other side of the street, got out of his Mercedes, and called something out to Mr. "I-don’t-have-a-home-because-I’m-free". The kid took a small package out of his pocket and tossed it to Flashy Dresser. It really looked like a drug deal to me.

They really do their arenas right around here. There’s no putting your playground out in one of the suburbs with lots of parking and plenty of feeder roads. Nope, they stuck both their baseball stadium and their hockey (basketball too?) stadium right smack-dab in the middle of town. And parking is brutal downtown. I guess that makes sure that only your real fans, the ones that are willing to suffer, come to see you play.

Speaking of hockey, I’m going to get to see the Maple Leafs play next week against Montreal, I think. One of the bigwigs up here offered my boss and I his season tickets for that night when he found out I was interested in going to a game. I was just going to pay for it myself, if I could even get a ticket. I’m getting the impression that hockey fans are a bit, well, fanatic around here. Eddie Belfour better have his game on for me. I miss seeing him in a Stars jersey. Good goalie. Old though.

Lake Ontario is pretty cool. I was about to say that this is the first Great Lake I’ve seen, but that wouldn’t be true. I’ve been to Chicago once or twice and I remember seeing Lake Whatever. I think it’s Michigan, but it’s probably something else. When I first saw Lake Ontario I thought it was an ocean. It’s just that big.

Had a horrible nightmare the other night. I dreamt I was in one of those gigantic two story mansions that you only see in mysteries. It was very nicely decorated. Almost exactly what I would have made for a Nancy Drew episode. Spooky. I was upstairs in some room and there was a big poisonous lizard on the steps. He was well hidden, so no one saw him until it was too late. Once they got to the right spot though, he jumped out and bit them. So eventually someone made it up to the room and I told them about the lizard. We got together and went to the stairs to see if we could find the toothy bastard. He was hidden away under the carpet with his snout pointing out. As soon as we spotted each other, he jumped out on the attack, but we somehow managed to scare him away. Unfortunately he ran into the creepiest room in the house. The one with all the furniture covered in sheets and no working lights. For some reason, I went into the room alone, armed only with a club of some sort and a candelabra to provide light. The light from the candles caused strange shadows and didn’t do a terribly good job of lighting the place up. I was poking around the room when I heard some noises behind me, between me and the door. I looked up, and I could see this vague lizard like shape on the ground a few feet from me. By time I realized what it was, it was on the move and jumping at me. I sat straight up in my bed gasping for breath and looking around the hotel room to make sure there weren’t any lizards in the room. I have no idea where the dream came from. Perhaps some handy dream interpreter will figure it out for me.

Last night (Thurs) we went to a little French bistro in downtown Toronto. We’d gone downtown once earlier this week, but we must not have been on the right street for entertainment purposes. There was much more to see on this street. We started off at the little hippy artist section and perused a fine display of hemp-based products as well as various forms of street art. Then we admired the booming business being done by the hot dog vendors. Our final stop before dinner was in a little record store. And I do mean both "little" and "record". I don’t really know how the store manages to stay in business. There wasn’t a huge selection. I imagine that it caters almost exclusively to the DJ crowd. There were real, honest-to-god records for sale and turntables up against the wall so that potential buyers could sample that old record feeling. I’m not a big music person, so most of it was lost on me, but it was kind of cool. After dinner we wandered around a little more. I was drawn to the giant television screen outside Chapters (think Barnes & Noble but put it in Canada). If you were standing right and looking at the corner the right way, you might have thought you were in Time Square or Picadilly Circus. The payoff wasn’t that good though. We didn’t bother going in and it didn’t attract us to a significantly more interesting area. We ended the evening in a little pub. Funny, but it looked just like all the pubs I went to in England.

Home Sweet Home – August 26 – Part 2

In case someone hasn’t figured it out and needs it spelled out to them, I’m home now. It’s good to be home. I’m surprised to find that everything is pretty much the same as I left it and we’ve all resumed our roles as if I never even left. Even the cats have accepted that I’m back at home and not eaten by some predator.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles – August 26, 2005

This is it. It’s finally time to go home. I can’t wait. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of the United Kingdom – and I think anyone would agree that I’ve seen a lot – but I’m ready to be back in my own home with my own bathroom and my family. FYI, there are no actual trains in this story, just busses, planes and cars.

We had to get up at an ungodly hour to get our traveling done. I didn’t get to sleep last night until midnight, and I had to wake up at 4:00am. Not even chickens or farmers are up that early! We caught a cab at 5:00 from York to Leeds so that we could catch the 6:45 flight from Leeds-Bradford International Airport to Heathrow International in London. The first flight was no sweat; nothing to really get excited about. I was sitting in the very first row of the plane on an aisle seat, so I had plenty of leg room to stretch out. Lugging my bags around was a pain in the ass, but that’s what I get for packing so much. I’ve learned my lesson and will be packing just a bit less when I go to Dublin in October.

Once we got to Heathrow, we still had to catch a bus across town to Gatwick for our flight back to Dallas. That involved a bus ride. They have it set up so that there’s a bus company that regularly drives people back and forth between the two airports. Too bad today was not one of their better organized days. There were three busses labeled for Gatwick at the stop, but only one of them was actually going. To top that off, the woman driving the bus didn’t normally do that route and didn’t know exactly where she was going. She made it from the stop to the next terminal at Heathrow by following the signs. She then had to get directions from one of the passengers to get to Gatwick. I thought it was quite funny. The guy sitting next to me looked like he was going to explode. The bus was crowded, and since we were all going from one airport to another, there was a lot of baggage. There was this one Indian couple that looked like they were using the bus as a moving van. They had these four huge boxes that they had to get stuffed into the baggage compartment, and we were wondering if the bus was going to have enough room to take anyone else’s luggage. Luckily there was just enough room to squeeze everything in.

Once we arrived at Gatwick it was time for the first of three very intensive security interrogations. The guy that questioned me at the ticket counter thought that he’d caught me in a lie. He asked if I had been anywhere outside the UK during my three weeks there, and I said no. Then he tore the luggage tags off my baggage that I’d left on from Heathrow. He had a hard time understanding that I’d already flown once today, but I think I finally convinced him that I wasn’t a terrorist or a criminal. We got out tickets and proceeded to security checkpoint #2. This was where they scanned our bags and our persons for dangerous object. One of the guys in our party was pulled out of line for some additional screening after his carry-ons went through. I wonder what he had in there, and I wonder how he enjoyed the full body cavity search.

So now I’m sitting on an airplane typing this out. I think we just went over Manchester a few minutes ago. I’m betting that I’m going to lose track of where we are pretty quick. It’s a nice plane I think. In some ways nice than the one I went to the UK on and in some ways not. I think that it’s nicer because it’s the one that’s taking me home, but the flight to the UK had better accommodations. I’m willing to accept that trade-off.

No Sweat – August 24-25

“No sweat” is about as far from the truth as I could possibly be. This has been one of the most stressful weeks I’ve ever had. The VP is in town to review our work; we’ve got to wrap everything up in two days; and then I’m going to have to present my part of it. It’s rough. I’m not great on the whole public speaking thing, and they’re telling me to expect someone to dispute my findings. Great. I’ve been working all day long, which is unusual, and I’ve even had to take some time to look at things at night. I never take work home with me; so that killed me that I had to do it. However, it went just fine. There was very little discussion regarding my work. I doubt that it was because the work was just that great. I’m more inclined to think that they didn’t argue about my stuff because there were bigger fish to fry.

Dinner was a large and raucous party. There were ten of us at a very trendy-seeming York restaurant called the Living Room. Very nice: good food, good drinks, great service. The only problem I had was that I could only hear about one word in ten of what was said. I don’t have the greatest hearing, and the acoustics in the restaurant weren’t really made for casual conversation. I sat near some of the upper level people, and they tried to include me in the conversation, but it was really an exercise in futility. It wasn’t all that bad though. I had a pint of Guiness, an apple cidre, and two glasses of wine to keep me company. I’m just glad I didn’t do anything stupid to embarrass myself. We left early to go back to the hotel since we had a very early flight, but as a whole dinner lasted about four hours.

Crazy Days – August 23

I haven’t updated yet this week for two reasons. First, there really hasn’t been anything going on worth updating besides going to dinner in bad restaurants, although there is a story with that one. Second, this is the last week of the audit, the VP is going to be here on Wednesday reviewing our work, and I’m scrambling to get everything finished. Sorry.

Now, the restaurant story:

I asked a couple of the people at the company if they could suggest someplace good to eat. Both of them immediately said Plunketts. I thought, “That sounds like a good British name. I’ll bet they have some good stuff. Besides, they come highly recommended.” What I didn’t ask was what kind of food they serve, a very important detail when dealing with hungry auditors that get bad-tempered when in need of food and beer. We get in the cab to take us to the hotel and mention that we’re going there for dinner. One of the older, wiser guys in the cab asked what kind of food was served there. The cabbie said, “Mostly Mexican I guess.” He must have heard me groan because then he said, “But don’t worry. It’s not all that spicy.” Sending a Texan to get Mexican food in England is the equivalent of one of them coming to Dallas and me sending them to a great place to get fish and chips. It just doesn’t work.

The Queen’s Sweet Digs – August 21

Although I didn’t have as much on my list to do today, I still needed to make sure I was up and ready to get going reasonably early. I stayed in bed a little longer this morning and savored not being on my feet, but by 8:30 I was dressed and ready to roam. However, my touring companion for the day was not, and my explorations were delayed until 9:30. Before he joined me, I checked out of the hotel and put my bags in his room. Then I sat in the lobby reading an e-book for a couple of minutes.

We left the hotel headed for Buckingham Palace. After a couple of train stops and a walk through the same park I got lost in yesterday, we made it to the Royal Residence. By this time it was about 10:15, and we got in line to buy our tickets. There was a nice little Palace employee asking everyone if they wanted to see “Changing of the Guard,” which we did of course. Changing of the Guard happens only every other day, so I was surprised enough that we managed to be there on the right day for it anyway. You can’t buy your tickets and then wait around for the Changing though, so we got out of line and headed for the front. They do timed entry tours, so if we’d bought a ticket then we were guaranteed to go in immediately and miss the Changing. After hanging out for about 15 minutes, we decided that it wasn’t worth the time waiting for it. First of all, I’d read that it was very overrated, and second, the crowd in front of the gates ensured that any view we’d have of the Change would suck, so we decided to skip it and go take the tour immediately.

The Queen has a nice house. It’s big; it’s imposing; it’s filled to the top with priceless art. We didn’t get a tour of the royal living quarters, of course, but we got a nice long tour of the State Rooms. Visiting statesmen get quite a sight when they come to visit the Queen. She’s got one hell of an art collection and some damn fine looking tableware. That’s not even mentioning the table itself or the room that holds it. Everything is on this grandiose sort of scale. Everything is designed to impress. Her Royal Majesty’s chair, however, is nothing to really be impressed by, other than the fact that it’s her throne. It doesn’t look much like a throne though, not the way I imagine them to be at any rate. Queen Victoria’s chair is pretty impressive, but no one ever sits in it. That’s the way of thrones, I was told. When the old monarch dies and the new one is crowned, the old chair is moved off to the side and never sat in again. I’m sure they do something with the older ones – the thrones of only the current and two previous monarchs are in the throne room, but I have this idle fantasy that the rest are sitting in a storage room somewhere just to keep anyone else from sitting on them.

We finally finished the tour, and by that time we were ready for lunch. I’ve heard that Harrod’s has about 18 different restaurants inside it, and I wanted to go there anyway, so we caught a train down another couple of stops to take a look. Harrod’s is the most imposing department store I’ve ever been in. Yes, it has a lot of restaurants on the first floor, but more impressive are the five levels of shopping. It was also a pretty crowded place, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking around. Besides, I can get almost anything there at Willow Bend Mall except for the souvenir Christmas tree ornament I bought. I saw enough to recognize that you can go a long way towards wiping out a bank account in there. I also saw the memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi. It’s a nice little monument on the bottom floor with lots of flowers, a fountain, and a wine glass that they were using at dinner that night. There was a huge crowd around it though, so it was hard to get a good picture.

I was ready to get back to York after Harrod’s, but it was only 4:00 and my train didn’t leave until 8:00, so we wandered over to Covent Garden looking for some t-shirts. I still don’t have any cash, and all the stalls took cash, so no England t-shirts for anyone. I certainly wasn’t going to pay 20 pounds at the department store for them. That translates to around $40. Everything is notationally the same here, but you have to multiply it all by two to get the American money equivalent. I did see a street performer there. He was throwing knives and telling jokes. Truth to tell, he never actually threw any knives at people, although as part of his act he convinced a guy that he was. I thought he was funny; my exploring companion for the day said he had seen much better. Of course, he’s had more time to hang out there than I have.

We left Covent Garden to go to Picadilly Circus again and look for this giant toy store I’d been told about, a place called Hamley’s. It was indeed giant and probably one of the best toy stores I’ve ever been in. It reminded me a lot of FAO Schwartz in New York. I saw FAO S at Christmastime though, so the decorations there were probably a little better. They’ve got a serious Leggo thing going on. There was a life size Leggo Hagrid and Harry Potter, and when I say life size I really mean it. The Leggo Hagrid was about 7 feet tall. They also had a Leggo Boba Fett that was about 5’6”. Very nice.

I went to dinner with our department vice president that night, but it wasn’t all that exciting. We were sort of in a rush to find a place because he recognized that I had a train to catch. I did the dine and dash thing and still missed my train by ten minutes, so I had to catch the 9:00 to York. It was delayed for half an hour, so I ended up spending an hour and a half in King’s Cross station waiting for it. If I’d known it was going to be so easy to find a seat on the train, I wouldn’t have stood in line for that whole time. I would have gone to find Platforms 9 and 10, but I didn’t. Probably for the best. First of all, it’s kind of stupid, and second, my feet were killing me and all I wanted to do was sit down. Walking was the last thing I wanted to do. I was pretty sure I was going to get enough of that in York when I got there anyway.

The train ride was nice and quiet except for these two pre-teens that kept running up and down the aisle messing with things in the “Quiet Car.” I wanted to trip them every time they passed, but I restrained myself. I spent most of the trip reading and trying to figure out what I would do to get to the hotel once I arrived. In the end, I just ended up walking. It’s only a mile or a mile and a half from the train station to the hotel. I didn’t have any cab fare, so I wasn’t going to be able to do that. I thought I might be able to catch a bus, but none ever showed up at the train station. I’d already resigned myself to the walk, so I probably didn’t wait around long enough. It wasn’t too bad of a walk, but I wouldn’t want to do it again, certainly not after all the walking I’d already done over the weekend anyway.

My room this week is nice. I got a suite. I wonder if it’s because I was so late checking in. There are two distinct and separate rooms, a hallway, and a king size bed. I’m living in luxury this week.

London Bridge… - August 20

…is in no danger of falling down, just to ease your mind. I saw it and it looks perfectly fine whatever the song might say.

I got my 8:00 wake-up call and lazed in bed for all of 15 minutes before starting the day. First stop, the Tower of London. I traced out the route to take last night before going to bed, so I knew exactly what lines to take and what stops to get off at. No problem whatsoever. If I lived in London, I wouldn’t even bother owning a car. There’s pretty much nowhere you can go that you can’t get to by train.

I forked over my 14 pounds for entry to the Tower. They call it the Tower, but in reality it’s more like a castle complex along the river. There are several towers, but they’re really more like turrets on the wall than what I thought of as a tower. Especially the White Tower. It actually is mostly white, by the way – dirty white, but still white. It just looked like a three story palace to me. I got to go in to a lot of the buildings in the Tower complex. The only one I didn’t bother going into was the Fusilier’s Museum, which is run by the British Army, I think, and it shows the history of the army. I wasn’t really that interested in it. To tell the truth, although I was really excited about seeing the tower I didn’t find most of it very interesting. The one part that I wouldn’t mind seeing again was the Crown Jewels exhibit. Apparently, that’s where Her Majesty the Queen prefers to keep her valuables. I can think of more secure places, but it’s her stuff, not mine. I wonder what the insurance on that collection is like. Anyway, the Crown Jewels were awesome. They were probably a bit on the gaudy side, but they’re for royalty, so I guess gaudy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. HRM the Queen has quite an impressive collection. Unfortunately, if you want to see it you’ll have to go visit the Tower yourself. They didn’t allow pictures. Worse, that wasn’t the only place my camera was refused entry today.

After leaving the Tower I hopped on a train to Trafalgar Square. I hopped on the train, but it didn’t go anywhere. I had a bit of a comedy of errors with that particular part of the journey. My train wasn’t going anywhere, but the train on the other platform was going to the same place and I saw three of them take off while I waited. I did the obvious. I left my train and went to the other one. I’ll bet you can guess what happened next. Yep, the doors on the train I had just left shut and off she went. Dammit. So I waited on the new train for another 15 minutes or so while the other train came and went quickly. Care to guess if I learned my lesson the first time? I’ll give a hint: no. I abandoned the non-moving train for the moving one, and watched the one I just left take off as soon as I left it again. This time I did learn my lesson, and eventually we actually started moving.

Trafalgar Square is ok. Nothing special. They had a couple of nice fountains, but other than that there wasn’t much to recommend it. The pigeons are brave there. They have absolutely no respect for humans and will just waddle along in front of you like they own the sidewalk. There’s none of that servile scattering that happens with normal pigeons. I took several pictures of the square, especially the monument. It’s a huge, beautiful fountain, and it looks amazing.

From Trafalgar Square I made my way down Whitehall Street with the eventual destination of Westminster Abbey/Parliament in mind. I knew they were both down that direction, and I knew they were near each other, but I didn’t know exactly where they were. As I wandered down the road I took pictures of the occasional monument. Truth to tell I’m a complete idiot when it comes to this country’s government. I had no idea what Parliament should look like, so every building was potentially the right building. I consequently took pictures of random buildings whose purpose I will probably never know. I did stumble on to a few interesting finds along the way. There was one spot where the sidewalk was crowded by a bunch of people surrounding something. I couldn’t tell what from far away, but as I got closer I realized that they were looking at a guard mounted on a horse that was tossing its head. The guard was a member of the Queen’s Life Guard. He didn’t have the obligatory Q-tip hat, but he did have the no-expression, I-just-stand-here-perfectly-still expression that the Q-tips have. At least he was on a horse though. I turned to walk through the place he was guarding with some other people, and on my way through I saw one of his brothers-in-arms. That guy’s job sucked. It absolutely sucked because he didn’t have a horse. What he did have was a crowd of taunting tourists hanging around trying to make him laugh and taking pictures with him. At least they weren’t throwing things. If I’d been him, armed with a sword and surrounded by a dozen annoying tourists, I’d probably start slicing people up. Maybe his youth is what prevented him from doing just that. He looked like he was only 15 or 16. You can smoke at 16 here, but I’m pretty sure you can’t be a guard for the Queen. Beyond the stoic guard was a courtyard of some sort. It had a monument at the end and no grass whatsoever, just this gravelly, dirt-like stuff. Maybe they practice something with horses there. I don’t know.

I turned around and started back out to Whitehall Street to continue on my way. My next little pleasant surprise was 10 Downing Street. That would be the home of the Prime Minister. You can’t really see much of the PM’s house, mostly because you can’t even go down on Downing Street. It’s blocked by a large iron gate guarded by machine gun carrying cops. They take Mr. Blair’s privacy seriously around here. I did take a picture or two – of both the house and the cops with their machine guns.

Finally I reached my destination. Parliament and Westminster Abbey are right next door to each other, so while outside the Abbey I took pictures of both, and the clock tower that holds Big Ben. I decided early on this week when I planned this trip that I wasn’t going to not go into some place interesting just because it costs $30 or $40, after application of the exchange rate, so into Westminster Abbey I went. Unfortunately, you will not be able to view my pictures of the inside of the Abbey because cameras are not allowed. The walls inside the abbey going up and down the main area (nave?) are covered with monuments to Lord this or Lady that. There were also a number of little side chapels that were worthy of exploration. I saw the tombs of several kings, Henry III and Edward the Confessor were among them. I saw Innocent’s Corner. There was a sad story that went along with that, which I heard on the Tower of London Tour. When Richard II, I think, died he left behind two sons age 12 and 10. The oldest boy, of course, was to be the new king. Their uncle, Richard III, was appointed the Lord Protector. He put them in the Tower, which was also one of the royal residences, and the little boys were never seen again. Most people think Richard killed them in order to take the crown himself. About 13 years later their bodies were discovered and were ordered removed and buried at Westminster Abbey. Their tomb became known as Innocent’s Corner. Incidentally, you’ve heard of Richard III even if you don’t know it. He is the subject of a very familiar nursery rhyme by the name of Humpty Dumpty. Interesting, eh?

Another of the more interesting places I saw inside was Poet’s Corner. This is where the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer is buried. There’s also a monument to William Shakespeare. I thought it was pretty cool. On the whole though, the York Minster was a prettier and much more interesting place than Westminster Abbey.

I shouldn’t forget to mention that I saw the Coronation Chair, too. That’s the chair that the King or Queen sits in during his/her coronation, and they’ve been using that chair for hundreds of years. Very cool.

After a wallet-sucking trip to the gift shop, I went back outside. I took more pictures of the Abbey and some faraway shots of Parliament. I did not try going in to Parliament, but I did walk about it a bit. There are some protesters that have set up a sort of semi-permanent protest against the war in Iraq outside it. From there I wandered over the Bridge to where the London Eye spins. I thought about getting on, but after looking at the line I decided against it. Then I wandered back over Millennium Bridge. By this time it was about 4:00, everything was shutting down, and I’d had it with walking. I decided that my last journey for the day would be a pass by Buckingham Palace on my way to the train station. This was way out of my way though. I think it must be about a two-mile walk from where Millennium Bridge ends and the gates to Buckingham Palace. On my way there I passed the Queen’s Life Guard again and walked through King James’ Park on the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk. Very tranquil and almost restful. My feet weren’t buying that. I didn’t linger at Buckingham Palace because that was on my to-do list for Sunday. I did get lost trying to find the train after I passed it though.

I finally got back to the hotel at 6:30 and rested for an hour. Then it was back out to meet a friend in Picadilly Circus. In case you’re curious, it’s London’s tamer version of Time Square. Lots of shops and stuff. We wandered around there and Leceister (pronounced Lester) Square for a while before heading back to the hotel and bed.

Scatter Drill – August 19

Today’s the day. I bought my ticket yesterday, packed my bag last night, and I’m ready to roll. I’ve got the jeans I’m wearing, two t-shirts, three pairs of socks and underwear, and the polo I wore to work today again for Monday, since I won’t be able to get to my bags again until Monday night. That’s it as far as clothing goes. I brought two paperbacks, my guidebook, and my PSP as well. Everything else is locked up in an office waiting for me to get it.

Everyone’s scattering this weekend. One guy is staying in Leeds for the weekend, one guy is staying in York, the only girl on the team has booked herself a train to Scotland, and I am taking my trip. We’re going to be all over the UK. There’s another team from my company actually working in London on another project. I heard the girls on that team talking about going to Paris for a weekend while they were over here. I’m pretty sure they didn’t go last weekend, so they may go this weekend. If they do, that would give us a presence in five cities in three countries. We’re taking Europe by storm.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to update this. Normally I would write this either as I go or on Sunday night when I get back, but I’m planning on leaving the computer in the office. I hope I can remember everything I did. I’ll have to take some notes each night on the very handy memo pads the Marriott leaves in the room. I’ll do my best.

The cab ride in from Leeds was pretty uneventful. I read the paper. I should have slept. A lot of the cabs have tray tables on the back sides of the seats. I think that’s a pretty useful little idea. I’ve seen vans in the States that have tables in between the seats – these were big, full-sized vans, not one of the mini-vans you see more often these days.

The company lucked out on my laundry. I sent my laundry to be done on Wednesday, and it cost 51 pounds. Using the same exchange rate I talked about last night, that’s $100. The hotel is changing to a new laundry service, so they didn’t charge me for any of it in exchange for some feedback on the new service. What a break, huh?

I’m feeling a little guilty. I’m leaving at 3:00 to catch a cab to the train station. Everyone else is leaving at 5:00. That’s two hours I’m getting off earlier than everyone else is. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have scheduled a later train.

The train ride to London was fairly uneventful. It was long, of course, but really nothing to get excited about. Once you’ve seen an hour or so of English countryside by train it sort of becomes old news. I did see a number of children properly leashed in the train station though. You’re not going anywhere, kid.

Once I arrived in London I had to make my way to the hotel. Fortunately, one of the managers with me let slip that the Underground stop closest to the hotel is the Swiss Cottage station, so once I got my Underground pass set up it was just a matter of finding my way to the right line, which I didn’t do right away. I started thinking that I needed the Picadilly line when what I was supposed to be looking for was the Jubilee line.

After checking in it was time to find dinner and familiarize myself with my immediate surroundings. There really isn’t anything special around the hotel. Lots of shops, but of course by time I got to them they were all closed and I wasn’t in a shopping mood anyway. I had dinner at Bennihana’s and then returned to the hotel to rest up for my Saturday tour de force of London.

Battered and Bruised – August 18

I’m feeling mentally beaten today. It’s been a long , hectic day, and I have this feeling that tomorrow is going to be the same. My psyche is black and blue, and it’s not because of anyone doing something. It’s just the feeling that the trip is coming to an end and all the work needs to be wrapped up.

Last night I consolidated my bags a bit. I wanted to get everything organized so that I had a place to stuff everything I’m taking with me to London. I’m going to be your basic back-packer. That’s all I’m bringing: my backpack. If it can’t fit in there, it’s not getting a trip to London. I recharged all of my electronics last night. I put in two t-shirts, three pairs of socks and three pairs of underwear. I have to remember that I’m not going to have access to all of my clothes until Monday night, so I’d better remember to pack a collared shirt. Although, I could just wear the one I wear tomorrow again on Friday. I did just get some cleaned, so I should have plenty. I think I may do that.

Aside from just being long, work was the same as usual. I sat next to an Indian woman on the train whose kid kept kicking me on the way. Very annoying. The difference between the Great North East Railroad trains and DART trains is that the DARTers are little more roomy. Probably because they’re not as used.

We finally found a good place for dinner in Leeds. Too bad we had to go through garbage to find it. Nice little restaurant not even a block away from the hotel. I had duck a l’orange, which was cooked to perfection, a Waldorf salad (I expected lettuce on the salad, but I saw no lettuce), a limoncella martini, and a mojito. I’ve had more drinks on this trip than I’ve had in the last five years I’ll bet. It’s interesting. Our audit director doesn’t drink, but both of the audit managers do. One of the managers is always saying that he doesn’t know how you can be an auditor and not drink. I’ll admit that the job is sometimes confusing – I think I make it more confusing by trying to make it more complicated than it actually is, by the way – but I’ve never thought of auditing as a stressful enough job to make me want to drink much. Maybe I’m just really not that into alcohol. I think it’s funny that the time of my life when I might have really wanted to drink all I could afford was the crap (i.e. Beast Beer and Mad Dog), but now that I’m successful enough to enjoy some decent stuff I’m not all that interested. I wonder if I could get used to a sipping whiskey or something like that. Maybe I’ll give that a shot at dinner one night. As long as one of the managers is with me they have to pay for it anyway. Not that they mind. Every time we go out I hear about the glory days at this one company they used to work together at. I thought our $100 per day international per diem was nice – before I got over here and found out how much everything costs that is – but the way they talk per diem wasn’t even an issue. Dinner cost a 133 pounds. Stop and think about that. There were three of us. According to the desk at the front desk, the dollars to pound exchange rate is 2.04:1. That’s probably not the bank rate just the hotel rate, but we’ll just use that as our exchange rate to make a point. That comes out to $271 USD for dinner for three. Amazing.

Short and Sweet – August 17

This is going to be short and sweet because there’s really not much to say. We’re taking the train from Leeds to York and back again, and I like it. I wish I lived closer to the trains at home. They seem to be a brilliant way to get from one place to the other. I love my car, but I’d be just as happy if it were a weekend only vehicle.

I was told today that Leeds is supposed to be a fairly affluent town. I’m not seeing it. There is nothing to eat around our restaurant. We had a Chinese buffet for dinner tonight. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had, but it was far from the best.

I need to clear some space on my camera for the weekend. I’d hate to run out of room for pictures in London.

Chewing the Fat – August 16

One thing I’m noticing over here is that there are very few grossly overweight people. There aren’t just a whole lot of waif looking people either, but I’ve only seen one person who looked like they might be out of breath after walking, slowly, the length of a football field. Not even walking, more like ambling or moseying. I’ve also only seen one person in a motorized wheelchair/scooter thing, which in the States are reserved for the disabled or the truly disgustingly overweight, and she looked genuinely handicapped. But I’m digressing. Soon I’ll start sounding prejudiced against fat people. Most of the people over here are in that very broad range between waif and heifer. They’re generally chunky people who look like they don’t miss many meals or they aren’t afraid to really tuck in. But I think they keep most of the weight off by doing a lot of walking. I see a lot of cars on the road, but I see a lot more people walking to catch the bus or the train. Oh, yeah… the teeth. Now after watching Austin Powers you would think that everyone has crooked, yellow teeth. It’s simply not so. Their teeth are generally just crooked. Maybe if they’re heavy smokers they’ll have crooked and yellow, but the ones I’ve run into generally just look a little snaggletooth.

I had fish and chips for lunch today, although it wasn’t proper fish and chips since it didn’t come wrapped up in an old newspaper. That’s what one of the accounting people tells me. I have to go to a proper fish and chips place and order "one of each, with scraps." The "scraps" are apparently the leftover pieces of batter. I don’t know why I have to have them though. Anyway, the fish and chips was good. Surprisingly good, as a matter of fact. Scratch that. The fish was good, the chips (that’s fries to all you yanks) sat out too long and had lost their crispiness. Very disappointing.

It’s been decided. I have no choice but to go to London this weekend. London is where my hotel will be and if I don’t go then I’ll have to sleep out on the street. I’m very excited. Now that I’ve got my credit card I can spend relatively freely, although anyone that knows my frugality won’t let me go overboard. I still have no idea what to get anyone as souvenirs. I understand that the boss found t-shirts with "mind the gap" on them. I’ll have to ask where. I know someone that would probably like that, although she’d probably be a little upset if that’s all she got. Now all I have to do is get my train worked out. Hmm, Stonehenge is still a possibility. It would be a much shorter trip from London to Salisbury than from York to Salisbury. I’ll have to think about that.
I’ve decided that I like taking the train to work every day. Even though the train from Leeds to York is a bit narrow and cramped, it’s nice to be able to just sit back and read a book while someone else worries about the driving. I wish I lived close enough to the DART Rail to do it at home.

We had to hike to dinner. Although Leeds looks bustling and it looks like there’s plenty to eat around the hotel, it’s mostly fast food (i.e. Subway, McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc.). The two guys from Blockbuster with me are a bit more high-class than that, so dinner has to be at a nice restaurant. We’re not having much luck finding one of those in Leeds, but at least we’re getting a good walk.

The last thing I did before bed last night was to bag up my laundry. The prices are, I think, insane. I had 10 pairs of underwear, socks, and shirts, and two pairs of pants, and it’s going to cost 51 pounds. I’m not complaining since I’m completely allowed to put that on my expense report, but I think the hotel probably makes a pretty high margin off the laundry service from guests who use it. I doubt a whole lot of them do though.

Run out of Town on Rails – August 15

Finally! After many, many days of stress and worry, my financial situation in a foreign country has been about 95% solved. I still don’t have cash, and I won’t be able to get it until I find out what my PIN is for my corporate card, but at least if I have to buy something I won’t have to worry about my card being declined. Now that I’ve said that, Amex probably doesn’t know that I’m traveling – although they’re the ones that sent my card over here – so they’ll probably start declining my transactions after just a few. I would have eaten much better the last couple of nights if I had my Amex card. Don’t leave home without it.

Noticed today that the blog looks a bit weird. Specifically, there are no spaces or indentations to indicate a new paragraph. Looks bad, but there’s nothing I can do to fix it right now. You’ll have to muddle through somehow.

Tonight, and until Friday morning, we’re staying in Leeds. There’s some big horse race thing going on in York this week, and the hotels are booked solid. I guess it’s a big annual event because the cab driver this morning said that some people book their rooms a year in advance. So we’re stuck staying in Leeds this week and taking a cab in to York all week. Apparently, it’s not cheap; 50 pounds both ways, and boy are the bosses grumbling about it. Don’t know why. It’s not like it’s coming out of their pocket. That’s what expense accounts are for. I guess they’re probably just bothered by how much cash they’re having to take out all the time. I don’t know. One of them suggested that we take the train from Leeds to York and then catch a cab from the train station to the office. Could be fun. The English countryside is actually pretty nice to look at. At least they have the occasional hill to and some trees to break up the grass monotony.
The morning actually started off fairly rotten, as is appropriate for a Monday. I got up early (who knew it was so bright at 6:30. Looked like the sun was all the way up.) and tried calling DHL to get my package re-routed. Customer Service doesn’t open until 8:00 though. So I read in bed for a little while until it was time to shower and shave. Then I tried calling customer service again. They said they could re-route the package, but I had to fax a request to their office in Leeds and it would take an additional 24 hours for it to arrive. I needed that package (credit card) tonight! So I arranged for the very friendly girl at the front desk of the Marriott to accept the package and call me when it was delivered. Then I sat in the lobby waiting for the boss. He never showed. I waited until 8:50 before I figured out that this was going to be a solo cab ride to the office. So much for not using the 20 pounds I borrowed from the friendly guest-auditor. Very nice of her to offer. I’d planned on not even touching it; it was my emergency stash in case someone declined my credit card. But the taxi’s over here don’t take credit cards, so it was time to break out the emergency fund.

The good news is that once I got to the office everything got a bit better. I was able to finish one of my parts of the audit program, until the boss gets ahold of it of course. Just before lunch the nice front desk girl, Emma, called to say my package was delivered, so at least I knew exactly where it was now. I tossed around two serious ideas about getting it. One would cause me to go hungry, the other would cause me to worry. Option A was to take a 10-minute walk to the bus station, hop a bus to the train station, transfer to a new bus to my destination, grab my package, and then do the same in reverse. Or, I could have Emma call a taxi and have the taxi driver deliver it. You see why I was worried about it though, right? I mean, can you think of any cab driver in America that you would trust to deliver something like that? Let’s be honest, there are a lot of people that would be very tempted to take a peek inside and then decide whether to deliver it. I’m not saying the English cabbie wasn’t like that, but it had an effect on my decision. So did my hunger. Fortunately, he was a trusty cab driver, and, as I said earlier, my card has finally arrived. Now I actually can go to London next weekend.

We left the office and squeezed into a station wagon type cab for our trip to Leeds. Four people (one of generous proportion and one of a lesser but still significant size), five large suitcases (I overpacked and brought two – it’s my first European business trip. A little latitude please.), briefcases, computer bags, and backpacks. And we’re driving twenty four miles to Leeds. Fun, fun, fun. It was a nice drive actually; not as bad as I expected nor as bad as it could have been. I saw an old red bus on the side of the road that had been turned into a café. I thought that was interesting.

Leeds itself doesn’t inspire much confidence on the outskirts. All the buildings look like the stereotypical ghetto apartments that you see in New York on TV. They’re just kind of ugly and run down. The city got better once you got into the city centre. It reminds me of New York somehow, although obviously much smaller. The cab driver said it was four or five times the size of York, which makes it about 500-600 thousand people. Doesn’t really compare to Dallas or Ft. Worth. The hotel is nice. If you didn’t know exactly where you were going, you wouldn’t be able to find it. You have to turn in to this little alley off one of the main streets to get to it. There’s allegedly a sign out front, but I’ve been out there twice and still haven’t seen it. I’ve got a couple of days though. Maybe it will jump out at me.

Dinner was something new for me. I had sushi. I’ve never partaken of raw fish before and I was surprised to find that I really liked it. I’d eat fish all the time if it always came like that. I’m told that the place wasn’t a very good sushi place since it only really offered tuna and salmon. I guess that at some of the good places you can get squid and other types of fish as well. However, the sushi connoisseurs that I was with assured me that although the menu was a little pathetic, what they did they did very well. I liked it either way.

The Reluctant Adventurer – August 14

I had a late – and to be completely honest, reluctant – start to the day. I woke up at 11:00, mainly because I didn’t want the maid to wake me up again. Then I hung out in my room and read until 1:30. After I finished my book I thought about just starting another one and staying in today, but the thought of just being alone in the room didn’t really appeal to me. I’ve got plenty of time for that and not as much time for exploring. So I made my way to the bus stop and hopped on a bus for Exhibition Square again. I’d determined that I was going to start today’s adventure by visiting the city’s art museum. Sadly, I wasn’t entirely impressed. The paintings were mostly religious in nature, which was something I expected. There was a room dedicated to Nature and one to some more modern art, but neither room had anything that really blew me away. I like art, but nothing they had here was really the style I like. Don’t ask me what that is though.

After the disappointing visit to the art museum, I decided that I was going to see if I could get into the minster using a credit card rather than some of the borrowed cash I had from one of my coworkers. Yay MasterCard!!! I was able to purchase entrance into both the main part of the minster and the Undercroft as well for only 7 pounds. The minster is amazing. I took a lot of pictures of it. The really nice touch was that since this is Sunday they were actually having mass today. The choir was practicing in the Quire. Very pretty music, but I think it may have been in Latin because I didn’t understand a word of it. The stained glass windows were awesome. I can’t imagine how much work went into those. The architecture was just phenomenal. I hope my pictures do it justice. There are all sorts of memorials on the walls to fallen soldiers and the like. I took some shots of those. Then on the other side there are memorials to the old deans and archbishops. I got some of those as well. If you’re ever in York, don’t skip out on the minster. The Undercroft was very interesting as well. I got an audio tour headset when I went down there. I saw the old Roman streets and some wells dating to that time. The minster’s treasure house was down there as well, so I got to see all sorts of old chalices and bowls and other religious tableware. Plus there were also some rings and staffs of a couple of archbishops to look at. They had somewhat gaudy taste in jewelry. Just an opinion.

After the minster I walked down the street a little aimlessly until I found myself on Davygate. I looked to my left, and what did I see? Borders bookstore. On my way there I also stopped in what appeared to be the only Starbucks in town, but true to the Starbucks philosophy of taking over the world one cup at a time, there was also one in the Borders. Whew! Good to know that you don’t have to go more than a mile to get your coffee fix. I looked around the bookstore for a while, and I saw some stuff that looked really tempting, but I think the one interesting hardcover I saw will be coming out in the States fairly soon, so I resisted paying almost double the price I other wise would have.

Yesterday’s tour really took a toll on me, but I still had one thing I wanted to do: walk the town wall by the Mickelgate. I had to hike a little to find the start, but eventually I found it. That’s a seriously long wall. I did get a few shots of the minster from the wall and one of Clifford’s Tower, but other than that all I saw were some residential neighborhoods. Nice, but nothing I can’t see anywhere else.

After that it was time to find my way back to the hotel for some much needed rest. I’ve still got to pack all my stuff up because we have to change hotels tomorrow. And I’ve got to get up early to see if DHL can route my credit card to my new hotel. Otherwise I’ll have to see if I can swing by here on the way to our new hotel after work tomorrow. What a hassle.

A Few Thoughts… August 13

Before I get to my explorations in York, I have a few thoughts. You see some things here that you would absolutely never see in the US. On Sunday night when we arrived we went to a proper English pub for dinner. I think I talked about it in one of my earlier posts. What I didn’t mention was the little girl I saw in there. I didn’t mention it earlier, but I went to that same pub for dinner last night and there was an even younger little boy in there. The little boy was just kind of wandering around and I kind of tracked his progress around the pub until he wound up back with his family. He was probably five or so. The little girl I saw the other night was actually sitting up on the bar while daddy ordered a couple of pints. It’s just alien how comfortable they are with alcohol. The kids grow up sitting on bars or running around pubs while mummy and daddy tie a couple on. Strange.

I learned something sort of funny about language today. In York the streets are called gates, the gates are called bars, and the bars are called pubs.

The drivers in this town are mad. Not angry mad, crazy mad. Mad, but very polite. They don’t seem to have the same problems with idiot drivers that we see in the States. They merge nicely. They don’t run red lights. They get very close to each other. While I was on the bus today we passed another bus. Both were going about 30 mph at the time. I could have reached out and high-fived one of the other busses passengers if they had had their hand out and I wanted to see how well the doctors here could treat a broken arm. One thing about the bus drivers though, they all think they’re Mario Andretti’s little brother. We were tearing ass through residential neighborhoods and the bus drivers were letting out their inner Speed Racer in a bad way. Oh, yeah. One other thing about driving in the UK. The yellow lights work both ways here. What I mean is that you’ve got your standard and familiar green-yellow-red pattern, but you’ve also got a red-yellow-green pattern. The red light stays on, but the yellow light flashes a few moments before it turns green. If it’s flashing, you can go. I guess it just means "go, but be careful."

Kids run around freely here with no parents. I saw two different groups of kids taking the bus from one place to another with no parents to watch them. The oldest may have been about 13, but the youngest was probably five. And no, these kids weren’t necessarily together, and no, their parents weren’t on the bus with them because they got off alone. That doesn’t count the eight or nine year olds I see walking through the City Centre on their way somewhere. These English people are very trusting.

I started off later than I expected today. I had planned to get up at 9:00 and go exploring. Just an aside, but have I mentioned that they use the 24-hour clock over here. It’s a little tough telling time at night for me. The television has a clock on it, but it’s a 24-hour clock, so at 5:00 in the afternoon I have to try to puzzle out what 17:00 means. I’m really kind of out of practice with that, even though my last job told time the same way. Anyway, I started my exploration at the bus stop where I purchased an all day pass for 2.50 pounds. That’s a little less than $5.00, which sounds like a bit much but ended up being completely worth it. Whenever I’m in a touristy type of town I need to have a plan. Unfortunately, I’m just not motivated enough to come up with a real plan on my own, so my explorations tend to be a little unfocussed. I got off the bus on Rougier Street and walked about a quarter of a mile to Exhibition Square. One of the nice things about this little historic town is that they have a group of volunteer tour guides that give free two-hour walking tours every day. Since it’s summer they do it three times per day. Too bad I didn’t know what time the tours started. Well, I guess I’m an opportunist. I spotted a group of people and thought, "That could be the free tour," so I joined them. Of course I knew that it could just as easily not be the free tour, but what’s the worst that could happen. So I followed them along the tour for a little way and got to hear some interesting stories and see some interesting stuff. I was with them from Exhibition Square to the York Minster, which really only took about 15 minutes. When we got there the tour guide started talking about letting the people go in to the minster and getting back together after lunch. I was pretty sure the free tour didn’t include a lunch break. That’s when I noticed that they were all wearing little badges and had my suspicions confirmed. So I left them and struck out on my own. The minster area borders pretty close on the Shambles, which was pretty high on my list of things to see. It’s supposed to be one of the oldest streets in Europe, and they say you can touch both sides of the street at the same time while standing in the middle of the street. They don’t mention that you can only do that if you’re about 9 feet tall. It wasn’t billed quite as expected, but it was still cool anyway. It looked just like Diagon Alley and there were just as many people in it.

After going through the Shambles I wandered my way over to the castle area and saw Clifford’s Tower. I don’t remember the story exactly, but over a hundred Jews locked themselves in there to escape a mob and decided to take their own lives rather than suffer the mob’s "mercy." Behind that was the "castle," which didn’t look much like a castle to me. It’s a shame that I’m still having my cash flow problem because I would have loved to go through the Castle Museum and the Clifford’s Tower Museum. Plus, there was the York Dungeons that I would have liked to go through too. Maybe if everything works itself out by next weekend I’ll stay in York and go through them. London is still an option.

Lunch was at a Pizza Hut. There really wasn’t much difference from one here to one at home. It’s pizza. How different can it be? After lunch it was raining outside, so I decided to get on a bus to wait out the rain. I went from one side of town to the other and out on to Clifton Moor, which is where I’ve been working for the last week, so I didn’t get to see anything new. However, I wasn’t getting wet either, so I didn’t complain too much. I rode the train back to town and decided it was time to tackle the town walls. I planned to do two of the major portions still standing, but it just didn’t happen. I joined up with another tour group in the barbican and followed them a little ways, but the tour guide was talking too much about the Nestle factory and I decided to bail on them. So I walked around and took some more pictures. I went down the narrowest staircase imaginable. It was so tiny that if I had been just an inch or two taller I would have hit my head on the ceiling. I somehow ended up back outside the minster, but my camera decided not to cooperate anymore, and the battery died. And it started raining again. Lucky me. So I slipped into this church that Guy Fawkes was baptised in. Feel free to look Guy Fawkes up. I know nothing about him other than he’s historically important enough to have his own holiday in places other than America. Nice church. Very pretty and very old. There’s a lot of those around here.

After a while the rain died down and I decided to go back to the hotel. Along the way I found the York Tourism office and went inside. In there I discovered the times for the free tours. I’m not about to go on a guided tour of a historical city without my camera though. Fortunately I had enough time to get back to the hotel, recharge my camera’s batteries and head back out. Public transportation isn’t something I have a whole lot of experience with, so of course I got on the wrong bus. I realized it fairly soon after the bus took off, but of course by then it was too late. I was on it for the long haul. Mini-Mario took me on a tour of the residential side of York. I went all the way with him to the end of the line, where he decided it was time for a smoke break and got out. So I asked him how to get back to the hotel and after he finished laughing a little bit, he told me the bus I needed to catch and that he would tell me when I needed to get off his. Very helpful. An hour after I got on the first bus I found managed to make it back to my hotel. The good thing was that I still had enough time to recharge the batteries and call home.

I got back to Exhibition Square and sat around waiting for the tour to start. I met a woman from New Zeland who was backpacking around Europe. The impression I’ve always had about backpackers was that they were all young kids, either late teens or early twenties. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This woman was about 50 or 55 years old. She was in good shape, but not what you would expect from a backpacker. The tour itself was a little disappointing. We saw some old Roman walls, which was interesting, but the tour guide spent way too much time talking about the. Then we say the remains of Saint Mary’s (I think) Abbey. Again, it was pretty cool, but the tour guide spent too much time talking about it. Then we got back on the same portion of the wall that I was on earlier in the day. That second tour group I joined earlier? I should have stayed with them. Their tour guide was much funnier than mine. At least he knew a lot about the city though.

After the tour I walked most of the way back to the hotel. I was really looking for someplace to eat, but I didn’t have a whole lot of luck. I ended up catching the bus for the last half mile back to the hotel and ate in the hotel restaurant. Dinner was 31.45 pounds, which translates to $50+. That is officially the most expensive meal I’ve ever had by myself. It was good though. I had a liter of water, roasted lamb shank with mashed potatoes and a vegetable compote, and a black forest cake type thing. Worth every penny, and I hope my employer thinks so too.
So now I’m back in the room killing time before bed. It’s been a good day.

Fish and Chips - 8/10

More work. I got my credit card issue settled last night… hopefully. Nothing’s certain until the card is actually in my hand, but I’m more hopeful this time than at any other time the last few days. I see that I haven’t mentioned the credit card problem before. Huh. That was a fairly big deal, so it’s kind of surprising. I brought two credit cards to York with me. My Discover card, which I’d planned to use as my main card, and a Visa, which has a lower balance and wsa thus going to be my backup card. Unfortunately, Discover is pretty much not accepted anywhere in the UK. You can’t even get cash out of the machine with it. I had a nice long talk with the holders of my Visa card, but they’re basically useless. I’ll be canceling that card as soon as I get back to the States. They would not give me an emergency credit increase. The only reason I brought these cards was because I hadn’t received my corporate card yet, but a quick call to the
American Express office and that should be taken care of on Friday. We’ll see.

Anyway, that should be solved now and as soon as I get the card I’ll feel a lot better. I’ll be able to enjoy my weekend. I’ve got some plans, and I’m armed with a camera.

We went into the city center for lunch today rather than the little next door bakery. We kind of had a hard time finding something, but we eventually settled for a little pub and had some pretty basic food. One of the guys I’m with has been talking about fish and chips the whole time. Too bad it wasn’t as good as he’d hoped. We went into town so that he could buy a bag for his trip to London this weekend. We stopped at an English department store called Marks and Spencer. It’s very strange to see a department store on par with Sears or JC Penney that has the entire first floor dedicated to groceries. Very odd. Dinner was at a Turkish restaurant. I had
a Turkish beer. It was light, but I let it get warm and it started tasting bitter.

The Long and Winding Road - 8/8

First day on the job in York. I’m still tired, but at least that will pass. I thought of several work-arounds for my credit card problem. First is the ATM machine across the street at the gas station. I can pop my other credit card in there and get some pounds if I need them. The second is that my corporate card should arrive sometime this week and the hotel will charge to it even without the actual card present. Very nice of them.
Breakfast this morning was a buffet of English foods. There were fried eggs, sausages, black pudding, fruits, and beans. Who eats beans for breakfast? Apparently, the British do. Very strange.

We took a taxi to the office, and I got my first real look at Historic York. I think I saw the original town wall, and if I did that’s really cool. I can’t wait to get out and look around town at this stuff though. I’m tentatively planning to do it this weekend. My plans for seeing Stonehenge and London are kind of in jeopardy. Do I want to spend $134 on the train to get to London? Do I want to spring for a hotel room there? I can’t decide. I really want to go to London, but I don’t know how much I want to pay for it. I suppose I could always bill the company for it. They may or may not question it. They should pay for it, so maybe I’ll do it anyway.

Top Flight 8/6-8/7

If you ever have the opportunity to fly business class, take it! Do not hesitate, unless you’re paying for it yourself, then think twice because the tickets aren’t cheap. I got to do it, and aside from some minor issues that had nothing to do with the plane or staff it was wonderful.
I checked in at 4:00 for my flight and spent an hour outside the ticketing booth chatting and watching some of the other travelers. The most interesting of all the travelers we saw was the guy with the long silver case that TSA didn’t want to take right away. I think he was a hunter and that was his gun. I know he paid a skycap $50 to go buy a $7 lock, so obviously TSA wanted it locked up before they’d put it on the plane. Fortunately, I don’t think he was on my plane. Then there was his girlfriend. She must have passed us 10 times, but it was all one way. We never could figure out how she’d pass us and then show up two minutes later by his side at the security checkpoint.

After I got into the terminal I got some currency exchanged and headed for the Admiral’s Club. Suh-weet! Either the receptionist was completely taken by my incredibly good looks or she had a problem separating the drink tickets because I got two free drinks while the rest of my group only got one. I’m going to choose to believe that it was my good looks. Feel free to disagree, but do it internally. Since I’m not a big drinker, I gave one of my tickets to the boss. I’ve discovered on this trip that he loves, I mean really LOVES, beer. We hung out in there just shooting the breeze until it was time to board. The Admiral’s Club is nice. If you ever have the opportunity to go in there, don’t pass it up.

Board the plane and relax into luxury. The seats were like flying Lay-Z-Boys. Or maybe movie theatre seats with a built in pillow and footrest. It had a tray table that pulled out of the armrest and little TV screens that came out of the front of the seats. Before takeoff a flight attendant came around with complimentary orange juice and champagne. Strangely they didn’t combine the two into mimosas. Maintenance was working on our plane for a little while, so we ended up taking off an hour late. We must have had a good tailwind though because we were only half an hour late arriving. The flight attendant also handed out the dinner menus.

During dinner I watched Shrek 2. I think I liked it more the second time than I did the first. Fairy Godmother wasn’t a nice person. I probably wouldn’t have watched anything if it hadn’t been for my seatmate. I got this 66 year old man that looked like Santa Claus without a beard. He was a very friendly guy who really wanted to chat. I’m not a chatty guy in general and I’m certainly not interested in doing a whole lot of chatting on a plane. I don’t want to get to know the people I’m flying with all that much. He introduced himself and said "I guess we’re going to be bedmates tonight." I told him there would be no cuddling. He proceeded to tell me all sorts of details about himself. Why and where he’s going in the UK, that his wife had left him after 42 years for another woman, how one of his flight attendant girlfriends gave him a spa pack full of condoms. It was a bit of torture actually. I got all sorts of advice on trust and love from him. Thankfully, his seat was slightly broken so I was informed that he would be moving to the empty row in front when bedtime came around.

After dinner it was lights out and time to try to sleep. I didn’t have a whole lot of luck with that. I think I may have dozed on and off for about four hours, but it certainly wasn’t enough to feel like real sleep. I tried listening to music, controlling my breathing, counting sheep… everything! Nothing really worked all that well. Eventually I gave up and watched some more television. They were rerunning the last couple episodes of Friends over and over again. Amusing the first time, not so much the second.

After eight long hours in the plane – no matter how luxurious, it’s still eight hours on a plane – we finally landed in London. Customs was a breeze. Nothing really exciting there except that I got a stamp in my passport. It’s my first, and you never forget your first. The airport was where those of us heading to York split off from those staying in London. We had to go get train tickets and find the train. Then we took a cross city train to King’s Cross Station. I didn’t get a chance to look around very much, but it didn’t look like I expected it to. The train to York was certainly nothing like I expected. My views of English trains have been limited to the Harry Potter movies, so I expected the trains to look like that. Not even close. There are no compartments. There was definitely no place to put your luggage. I just left it by the door and hoped that no one wanted to see what kind of clothes I had. I met a nice couple from Durham, but they weren’t all that interested in talking. The English countryside is nice, but once you’ve seen a couple of farms and cottages they really don’t change all that much. The definitely don’t get any more exciting.
Day one in York was uneventful. I explored the hotel. It’s old but still pretty nice. The room is tiny and there aren’t enough plugs. No TV worth speaking of although I did see Star Trek: Insurrection and Two and a Half Men. The toilet is a nightmare and the bath/shower makes me feel like a giant. We went to dinner at a pub. The food was ok, but it didn’t really stand out. Keep in mind that by this time I am absolutely exhausted, so nothing is right with the world. I also had some problems with my credit card company. Their sorry asses will be dropped as soon as I get back to the States.

Anyway, that’s it. I’m tired and I’m going to sleep. I’ll put up something else as soon as I can get some internet access. Who knows when that will be though.